Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Sotuta de Peon

Not the most beautiful hacienda but a great place to launch a tour if you have kids or just have a curiosity to see how hennequen was produced and processed. There is a good restaurant here (2012)
and a nice cart drawn ride to the cenotes for a swim. Check the schedule for tours.

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The haciendas were part of an ambitious land-grant scheme by the Spanish crown begun in the 16th century, as a way to reward conquistadors, Spanish nobles, and others for their loyalty to the king. Most were operated like small city-states, run by a powerful hacendado—a man whose economic and political clout could often be felt as far away as Mexico City. The haciendas were self-sufficient communities; they boasted churches and general stores, hospitals and schools. As many as 1,000 people might have lived on a single estate:administrators and foremen, priests and clerks and schoolteachers, and the countless Indian and mestizo workers who were virtually held in bondage to the landowner.

For centuries the haciendas dominated the economic and political landscape of Mexico. They typically focused on a single agricultural product, which varied from one region to the next. Mescal flourished in Zacatecas; sugar in Puebla; agave in Jalisco. It was in the Yucatan, though, where henequen, or sisal, was the principal crop, that the hacienda enjoyed its golden age. A rapidly expanding global market in the second half of the 19th century created a surge in demand for the fiber rope derived from the plant. Prices soared, and the profits that poured into the Yucatan gave birth to the nickname for which henequen would become known: oro verde, or "green gold."

With the movement toward synthetic fibers after World War I, though, the henequen market collapsed. Revolution shook Mexico in 1910, and angry protests against the feudal hacienda system hastened its demise.Across the country, the once thriving haciendas were ransacked and razed; others were abandoned and left to decay. Most would remain untouched for decades.